[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 8859-8862]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            VICTIM STATEMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Palmer). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I want to first thank my friend. I am very 
grateful to my friend from California, Congresswoman Speier, for having 
the idea and doing this. Powerful. As a former judge who heard cases 
like this, it is a powerful reminder of the evil or, as the poet said, 
the inhumanity of man to man. It is such an outrage.
  This was a special evening to bring attention to a grave injustice, 
so I am very grateful that Congresswoman Speier did what she did.
  It also brings to mind the fact that there is grave injustice. Nobody 
should get 6 months in prison for what was done in that case. In Texas, 
the minimum would be 5 years. I saw Judge Poe, a former district judge, 
also reading part of the statement of the victim in the case. And I 
just cannot imagine Judge Poe or myself giving a sentence anywhere 
close to 5 years. We would have been heading for the top, if not the 
top. It is just so outrageous.
  In considering an appropriate sentence, a judge--we were taught and 
the rule was--considered punishment just for what was done. You 
considered deterrence to the individual who committed the act. You 
considered general deterrence to the public at large and the message 
that would be sent with the sentence that was assessed. And you 
considered the protection of the general public.
  The sentence in this case was just outrageous beyond measure. It is 
no deterrence to the defendant, criminal actor. It is no general 
deterrence to the public at large. Somebody thinks they could get away 
with what he did and get the kind of light sentence he did; it is no 
deterrence at all.
  It certainly didn't protect the public. If he had done 30, 40 years 
in prison, the public would have been protected all that time. It 
certainly wasn't much punishment for punishment's sake.


                            Orlando Shooting

  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I want to turn now to the issue of the 
Orlando shooting. There is an article from The Daily Caller from June 
12, ``Did FBI Training Material Purge Cause Agency to Drop the Ball on 
Orlando Shooter?'' I would submit that it absolutely did.
  The FBI agents who questioned or investigated this matter I do not 
believe are at fault for shortcomings. I don't see them. Because I 
know, Michele Bachmann knows, Lynn Westmoreland knows, as we went over 
and were going through material that the FBI had classified--I thought 
it was ridiculous; the public should know--the documents about radical 
Islam that have been purged from the FBI training. Some were 
ridiculous, cartoon, this or that. But they classified them so that 
none of us could tell you, Mr. Speaker, or anyone publicly how 
ridiculous some of the purging was.
  According to this administration and Homeland Security, the Council 
on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, is an honorable organization. So 
are they all--all--honorable organizations? The Islamic Society of 
North America, all organizations that were named as coconspirators in 
the Holy Land Foundation trial: there were coconspirators named, and 
the judge found plenty of evidence to keep the named coconspirators in 
the pleading, though some of them tried to have them removed. But they 
say they are offended.
  They convince people in this administration that somehow the fact 
that nothing emboldens ISIS more than seeing a weak America and a weak 
American response is made to be somehow false, though it is absolutely 
the truth.
  Somehow, with the help of some of the media, some in this 
administration have been able to convince a lot of people that somehow, 
if you describe radical Islamist terrorists as what they are, you 
somehow are the reason that there is terrorism. They forget so quickly.
  Bill Clinton as President of the United States did more to try to 
help Muslims around the world, Eastern Europe than most any President. 
What happened? They tried to bring down the World Trade Center in 1993 
on his watch. Not only that, it turns out that the whole time President 
Clinton was sacrificing American life and limb and treasure to protect 
Muslims, they were plotting to try again to bring down the World Trade 
Center.
  No, Mr. Speaker, calling radical Islam is not what evokes terrorism. 
There are a number of factors, but weakness is definitely one of them. 
And this is a paraphrase, but Ronald Reagan pointed out that, in his 
lifetime, there was no war that was begun because the country was too 
strong. That prevents wars. It doesn't cause them. It doesn't cause 
terrorist attacks.
  I go again and again back to the comment from the African gentleman. 
My wife and I were visiting the Mercy Ship

[[Page 8860]]

there and the good they were doing treating the thousands and thousands 
there in West Africa who didn't have proper medical care. This 
wonderful charitable institution was doing great things. We were there 
for a week, washed dishes, assisted any way I could in surgery, 
anything I could do.
  But it was the Africans, at the end of the week, who wanted to meet 
with me and told me: Look, we were so excited when you elected your 
first Black President, but we have seen, since he has been President, 
you have gotten weaker and weaker in America. And when America gets 
weak, we suffer.
  Basically, we know where we are going when we die, but our only 
chance of having peace in this life is if America is strong. And this 
country has been weakened.
  As Muslims leaders have asked in the Middle East, North Africa, Asia: 
How do you not understand the Muslim Brotherhood has been at war with 
you since 1979? We don't understand. You placate, you help the Muslim 
Brotherhood, and you turn on your Muslim friends. We don't understand 
it. All around the world, they don't understand it.
  Iran is an enemy of the United States. They continue to say that. 
They continue to say that they lied and they would never submit to the 
terms that this administration said they agreed to. And it is one more 
thing that makes the radical Islamists or Islamists who are thinking 
about radicalizing, it helps them realize America is weak and they are 
stupid and they need to be wiped off the map.
  So what does this administration do? Well, Mr. Speaker, I have spoken 
from the floor here about a fellow Texan, Mr. Elibiary, who was a 
featured speaker at the 20th Century Man of Peace, the Ayatollah 
Khomeini, big closed-door event. He was a featured speaker to honor the 
Ayatollah Khomeini. When the convictions came through for supporting 
terrorism in the largest, most important terrorist case in America, he 
took up for the defendants. He said they were wrongly treated.
  We know that Osama bin Laden said that the writings of the Muslim 
brother Qutb--Q-U-T-B is how it is spelled--that Qutb, especially his 
booklet, ``Milestone,'' helped radicalize him.
  Mr. Elibiary was online encouraging people to read ``Milestone,'' 
that it was a great thing to read, that it was very helpful. And Osama 
bin Laden said it sure helped radicalize him.
  With all the warning signs, Janet Napolitano didn't care. She wanted 
to show the Muslim world that she was so above the fray and above these 
silly mortals, what fools these mortals be, that she was above all of 
that, that she could bring someone who named his foundation the same 
name as the political party of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. And he 
never would disclose--as far as I have seen, he still has not 
disclosed--where he got all the money for what he did.
  And yet she made him part of the Countering Violent Extremism 
advisory committee and then promoted him to the Homeland Security 
Advisory Council and gave him a classification so he could get online 
and review classified information.
  And Janet Napolitano, as Secretary of Homeland Security, testified 
falsely before our committee, first, that she didn't know anything 
about what I was talking about, him downloading documents and trying to 
offer them to news media, specific national news media, to publish. 
Thankfully, they turned it down.

                              {time}  2100

  She said she didn't know anything about it, yet the night before, her 
chief told the director of the Department of Public Safety in Texas--
because he called me right after the call--I just got a call from 
Napolitano. He says he has just finished fully briefing Secretary 
Napolitano on what Elibiary did on his own laptop at his home 
downloading this information.
  She said the next day: I have no idea, basically, what you are 
talking about.
  The next time, I told her: You said you would investigate.
  She said: We investigated. There was nothing to it.
  None of that was true. When documents were sought to show what was 
done in the investigation, it turns out there was no investigation. She 
was testifying falsely about that as well.
  So what are radical Islamists supposed to take from all this?
  You have an administration that is protecting them. When you review 
documents that have been cleaned out, taken, purged out of the training 
material for the FBI, for the State Department, for the Defense 
Department, for the CIA, for our intelligence, Department of Defense, 
it is no wonder FBI agents cannot discern that Tsarnaev had been 
radicalized even though Russia told us twice. And still this 
administration, they had so miseducated and undereducated our agents, 
they didn't know what to ask.
  How do you establish that somebody had been radicalized?
  My dear friend, Philip Haney, one of the original members of Homeland 
Security, it probably was a record the number of people that he put 
together the information to show their terrorist ties. He got a 
commendation for it. But when he started showing there were ties that 
people with this administration were having with known terrorists, they 
deleted thousands of pages of entries of what he had done. When he 
filed an IG report, they came after him. They impaneled a grand jury to 
try to destroy him, and he was so squeaky clean. Even though it put his 
wife in the hospital, nearly killed her, this patriot who has given his 
life and the opportunity to make millions of dollars with the kind of 
brilliant mind he has gave it all for his country.
  And what did this administration do in return?
  This award-winning, wonderful patriot was harassed and investigated, 
had rumors spread so that they could make sure that the other agents 
within Homeland Security knew that you don't want to say anything about 
people with terrorist ties because this will happen to you next.
  You know, he has been run through the wringer with a grand jury, and 
now we are going to take away his gun, his weapon in front of others--
terrible humiliation--and then basically put in a closet to push him 
into retirement. Thank God he was close to retirement. Now he is where 
he can tell all that was not classified. And we find out just how bad 
things have been, as this administration did more to protect radical 
Islamists than it has done really to help keep America safe.
  I know I am critical a lot, but I am grateful. I am very grateful 
that after this terrorist attack, the President didn't go play golf 
this time. He didn't call the Governor of Florida, but I am very 
grateful he didn't go play golf. He didn't go to a baseball game. He 
wasn't on the kiss camera somewhere. I think he is making progress now 
after 7\1/2\ years, and I am grateful for that. I thank him for that, 
Mr. Speaker, through you.
  But this article from the Daily Caller by Peter Hasson says: ``Syrian 
Immigrant Who Said 9/11 `Changed the World for Good' is a Homeland 
Security Adviser.'' It goes through and it talks about, you know, that 
she was picked by Jeh Johnson to help advise him. And here are some of 
the tweets--oh, and by the way, Mr. Elibiary, like I said, they finally 
let him end his term after he said the international caliphate was 
inevitable. Obviously, the United States, by his comments, will have to 
fall on our knees in front of the ultimate caliph, perhaps the 12th 
Imam in his mind. But he said Americans need to get used to it.
  Well, here is a new replacement. It looks like she has some of the 
views of Mr. Elibiary. This is a lady with the last name Alawa. So Ms. 
Alawa, on February 4, 2013, tweeted out: ``I can't deal with people 
saying America is the best nation in the world. Be critical. Be 
conscious. Don't be idiots.''
  Well, this Nation has previously been the best nation in the world. 
It has been the freest nation in the world, and that has been shown. 
But in recent years, we have fallen further and further down the list 
of the most free nations in the world. So we are certainly not the most 
free nation anymore, although we have been the most blessed

[[Page 8861]]

nation with personal freedoms and personal assets. The only nation in 
history, that I am aware of, where the number one health problem for 
the Nation's poor involved obesity.
  This adviser to Jeh Johnson also tweeted out that ``The US has never 
been a utopia unless you were a straight white male that owned land. 
Straight up period go home shut up.''
  Isn't that great, Mr. Speaker, that we have people with this 
mentality and hatred from Americans and bigoted racial positions that 
she can advise our Secretary of Homeland Security?
  Here is another one, September 17, 2014: ``9/11 is your day to pull 
out your flag themed clothing, and my day to look behind my back as I 
walk home.''
  Well, actually, I don't see a lot of attacks on Muslims in America, 
especially by true Christians because that is not a Christian thing to 
do. It is a radical Islamist thing to do.
  That is actually quite confirmed by this tweet on 26 April of 2013. 
She says: ``You can't say something intolerant and not expect 
consequences. Not on my watch.''
  Well, what she is advocating there, in America, under our 
Constitution, under every law of every State, is called a crime. She is 
advocating a crime.
  Our American Revolution saw the quoting, usually attributed to 
Voltaire--some differ for the proper attribution, perhaps Voltaire, but 
the saying was, ``I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to 
the death your right to say it.''
  Now, according to this high-flying adviser to our own American 
Homeland Security Department, that is now being changed. Basically, to 
put it more in Voltaire's potential terms, Miss Alawa is saying: I 
disagree with what you say, and I am going to cause hell to come down 
on you. There will be consequences because I disagree with what you 
say, and I am going to make you suffer for it.
  Well, see, that is under sharia law, and we find, obviously, she 
follows sharia law. She doesn't believe in the United States 
Constitution, she doesn't believe in freedom of speech, and yet here 
she is, a top adviser to our own Homeland Security Secretary.
  Here is another tweet. This was after Pamela Geller was exposing the 
lies and hypocrisy of radical Islam and had a drawing contest about 
Mohammed, and she says: How the blank is--and she fills in blanks. How 
the blank is the S blank @PamelaGeller is spewing ``free speech''? It's 
straight up warmongering hate speech. It's xenophobia.
  No. The hatred is belonging to Miss Alawa.
  Here is another to show her racism. She says: ``Because, Ya know, 
@TheBachelor, white people in America? They're not gonna be dominant 
majority for much longer.''
  So it is wonderful that Secretary Johnson feels that the way to 
protect America is to have racist, sharia-loving, above-the-
Constitution advisers telling him that you have to go easy on the 
radical Islamists and not call them what they are, and be mean and 
tough on people who are concerned about their physical safety, and you 
need to take the guns away.
  I mean, I found this statement. This is consistent. This 
administration says, when radical Islam attacks, it is time to take 
guns away from law-abiding Americans. And he keeps proposing this idea 
that this list that only this administration can compile--nobody in 
Congress is allowed to even know how they put their list together, 
potential watch list, terrorist list. We don't know how they put it. 
They won't tell us. They won't tell people how you get off the list. 
And yet this unconstitutional way of depriving people of their 
constitutional rights is being advocated by mostly everybody in this 
administration. We have to take away Americans' right to keep and bear 
arms if the President puts them on a list that says he doesn't want 
them to have guns.
  I mean, we have already seen what this administration has done to 
seniors. Okay. If you are a senior citizen and you have found--because 
of arthritis in your hands, whatever reason--it is easier for a family 
member to take care of your checking account and pay your bills so you 
don't have to suffer the problems--I know, I have had relatives deal 
with this, and it is happening now.
  So somebody is taking care of your checking account, you lose your 
Second Amendment right to protect yourself with a gun. But what I have 
seen repeatedly is seniors who may have a family member take care of 
their checking account, but they sure do know when somebody is breaking 
into their home, and they need to defend themselves. They know that. It 
is instinct. But apparently not in this administration.
  And how about this?
  The security firm that employed the Orlando gunman guards U.S. 
nuclear sites. Well, we had heard he worked for this--I believe it was 
G4S, something like that. Yeah, G4S. They have thousands of employees, 
and they guard nuclear sites.
  I have read before publicly from the request for proposal to provide 
security for Dulles Airport right out here from Washington. Such an 
important airport to our Nation's government. It is a request for 
proposal for independent contractors to provide security. The only 
qualification to providing the security for Dulles Airport, for the 
toll roads, for the perimeter around Dulles where you don't want 
somebody that might leave a gate open for a terrorist friend, well, 
your only qualification is you have to be over 21 and legally allowed 
to work, which means you can be a Syrian refugee and have gotten one of 
the work permits this administration hands out as a basic form of 
amnesty or maybe be part of a gang bang group that came up from Central 
America and lied about who you were, where you were coming from, and 
got a work permit through this President's amnesty bill, you are 
welcome to go to work at Dulles providing security. Great stuff.
  And then this article: ``American-born children of immigrants proving 
fruitful recruiting ground for jihad in the U.S.'' It seems like I have 
been talking about that for 6 years. People come over here on visas, 
they have children, and then the children are taught to hate America.
  In fact, our own al-Awlaki, the first American citizen to have been 
killed by presidential order with a drone strike, even though he had 
worked with the administration, he has led prayers. He is so dangerous, 
the Muslim staffers here on Capitol Hill had him lead their prayers a 
number of times. So dangerous, the President had to take him out with a 
drone strike, and yet he was an American citizen only because his 
parents came over on college visas, had him here, took him back to 
Yemen and taught him to hate America.

                              {time}  2115

  ``Orlando Terrorist Worked for Same Security Contractor That Has Been 
Moving Illegal Aliens Into the United States by the Vanload.'' This is 
from Debra Heine, June 13, from PJ Media.
  ``FBI Twice Probed Orlando Gunman,'' from Devlin Barrett, June 13, 
The Wall Street Journal.
  The FBI, the government, and homeland security had all kinds of 
warnings, but they chose to keep playing patsy with people that hate 
America, who are bigoted, racist Islamic supremacists, and the Nation 
has suffered as a result.
  So what are we going to do? We are supposed to take up a bill. And I 
applaud our party's leaders. They have made very clear that the 
President is making a severe mistake by not using the term ``Islamic 
terrorists.'' So we are taking up a nine-page bill tomorrow that uses 
the President's term repeatedly, over and over, ``countering violent 
extremism.'' We never use the term ``Islam.''
  We require reports and training, basically, in the Secretary's 
discretion, if he wants to. The bottom line is it gives cover for 
countering violent extremism when we are supposed to be pointing out 
radical Islamists are our enemy.
  This is not the bill we should be passing.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

[[Page 8862]]



                          ____________________